Music

STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
Music Composed and Conducted by CLIFF EIDELMAN
INTRADA Special Collection MAF 7117

From its opening bars, Cliff Eidelman’s music for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country exhibits marked differences from previous Star Trek scores, known for their emphasis on the romantic voyage of the Enterprise and the heroism of its crew. The focus in this score is on darker music used more sparingly for the films’ antagonists. The Klingon music not only pervades the score—in a sense, it is the score—but characterizes the alien race quite differently than in previous films. In the opening cue—deliberately titled “Overture” as opposed to ” Main Title” — the composer intended the rising-and-falling figure for cellos and double basses that opens the film—inspired by The Firebird—as the theme for another “bird,” the Klingon bird-of-prey. “That was there to help us feel the effects of something we can’t see, and in this film it really had to do with the Klingon ship that was cloaked,” Eidelman recalls. “It had to do with the fact that it’s mysterious, it’s dangerous and we can’t see it, and that theme kind of represented that.” Later, Eidelman employs a sepulchral men’s chorus, a color absent from any previous Star Trek music. Ultimately, Eidelman establishes a mood in which chaos and havoc appear poised to triumph while heroism and valor struggle to be heard over the forces of darkness.